Friday, August 28, 2009

It

So there's this thing.

In my yard.

It's not a bush....it's more like a whole lot of individual plants all growing together in the same general area. But the individual plant itself is like a stalk with leaves. Is it supposed to grow on its own? Or is it supposed to grow in a group like this monstrosity in my lawn? 'Cause the stalks in the middle of the grouping? They're dying from lack of sunlight. Seriously, WTF IS this? It's just...a thing. Last year the boy and I my father uprooted it, and yet here it is again! The REALLY weird thing is that this past spring, (after the uprooting of last year) the area that houses the thing sprouted red and yellow tulips. Really PRETTY red and yellow tulips that appeared with no assistance from me and made me really happy.

But then the tulips died, and the thing came back.

Seriously, any ideas? What is it??

See, the guy who lived in my house before me was a horticulturalist that worked at the IMA. So my lawn that was previously just grass now has this area in front of the house with random plants that pop up throughout the spring and summer and ostensibly need weeding and care and the like. Fantastic. I'm assuming it used to be beautiful. Seeing as how I have difficulty just keeping myself and the dogs alive and my neighbor procrastinates more than I do, we are obviously the perfect tenants for this setup. The original beauty of the lawn has now become more of a wild, untamed jungle beauty.

Most of the plants are pretty. And they bloom on their own each year with pretty orange or pink flowers. I like those plants. But then there are also green things with no flowers that grow around the pretty plants. In my world, no flowers = weeds. And THEN there's this patch of grass that I'm pretty sure is taller than my house. WTF is THAT?! Ugh.

So this weekend? I have scheduled the boy's assistance for Sunday. The thing? Yeah, I'm pulling it up. Anything green with no flowers in front of my house? Gone. The boy gets to use the big manly gas powered weed eater to mow through my back yard. He will also be the sounding board for, "Is this a weed?"

Robin - thanks for the advice! I will seek some more info from others with more experience just to be sure. I would hate to kill the purple flowers that were around earlier this year and have since disappeared.

Kat(i)e - Ah, but how to trim it? I mean, I know how to trim a regular bush - there are branches you cut and shape. These things, do I just cut off the tops of their stalks? Do I just pull up some of the ones on the fringe of the group? Since it's not one big thing, but a bunch of smaller things, it's all very confusing :-)

Trimming a bush is easy. You just cut away anything that doesn't look like a bush. :)

k, right, it's a skill, which is why a) I pulled up the bushes next to my garage (which were in a tiny space anyway and only served one purpose, or one of them did anyway, which was to prevent the sun from hitting my garage door sensor during the right time of fall/spring and thus allow the door to close without me standing in the path of the sun) and b) I don't trim the bushes in front of the house.

But someone who knows how could show you, and then you could just copy them.

Emily - it looks like a butterfly bush. Thanks to Paul's mom we have one too. It is made up of individual stalks, gets long and lanky, but attracts butterflies in the fall. You just have to trim it once in awhile. I think they die away in winter and come back in the spring if you don't completely dig it up. Hope this helps... :) JG